Thursday, January 17, 2013

Hoist on their own petard

I must say that I'm having a bit of fun watching the Republicans get hoist on their own petard. For example, there's this story from Ashley Parker about the "vote no/hope yes caucus."

These are the small but significant number of Republican representatives who, on the recent legislation to head off the broad tax increases and spending cuts mandated by the so-called fiscal cliff, voted no while privately hoping — and at times even lobbying — in favor of the bill’s passage, given the potential harmful economic consequences otherwise.

It would be reasonable to wonder why these representatives would vote no on a bill they secretly hoped would pass. Here's your answer:

Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and once the top spokesman for the former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert, a Republican, described the phenomenon thusly: “These are people who are political realists, they’re political pragmatists who want to see progress made in Washington, but are politically constrained from making compromises because they will be challenged in the primary.”

That's what happens when you turn your party over to extremist lunatics, folks. Back in 2009 Republicans were grinning like cheshire cats when the loonies showed up at town hall meetings to decry the fact that the Kenyan Muslim was giving us socialized health care. They fanned the flames and rode that horse all the way to sweeping victories in the 2010 midterms.

Now that crazy chicken is coming home to roost. And they're not going to let them get away with being reasonable.

I have zero advice for ya fellas. You brought this one on yourselves and you're going to have to figure a way out on your own too.

After meeting with members of the GOP conference at the party’s retreat in Williamsburg on Thursday, VA, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the GOP’s top budget guy, told reporters, in so many words, that they’re trying to talk their members off a ledge...

“[W]e aspire to give the country a very specific and clear vision about what we think is the right way to go on the major, big issue of the time,” Ryan said. “We have to at the same time recognize the divided government moment we have and the fiscal deadlines that are approaching — what those involve and then how we’re going to proceed forward.”

We pragmatic progressives have been patiently waiting for this moment because we're the ones that saw it coming as the end product of the Obama method. I hate to say I told you so - but I told you so :-)

5 comments:

I'm pretty sure that a number of the leadership have gotten various "marching orders" from their finanical backers. I've heard that even the Koch's are doing the "let's not get crazy here" routine in response to the threatened blocking of the debt limit increase. I do enjoy the schadenfreude, though.

This is what playing will do for you. None of the freshmen took the time to learn how to govern. They thought that raising money was all they had to do. The leadership egged them on. They signed pledges to work for weasels like Abramoff and Norquist. All I can say is that it sucks to be them.

Oh, well, all I can say is that the old sayings, "You reap what you sow," and You've got a tiger by the tail, now, what are you going to do about it?" are applicable to the republicans' current predicament. I remember well how the republicans and their friends in the corporate world were urging the tea partiers to go to the extreme simply because they didn't want all Americans to have access to affordable healthcare. They flipped the switch on the crazy, and the crazy is threatening to consume them, especially if the debt limit isn't increased because the Wall Streeters and other corporatists stand to lose millions in the near future. I must admit also, Ms. Smartypants, that I'm silently celebrating the fact that the republicans' plan has backfired on them.